I’m not sure what you two are getting at. If you don’t like your job, quit and go do something else.

Of course – if you live in a free market, you can go do something else to make money. The problem is that we don’t live in a free market. Essentially, this is where left libertarians conflict with center or right libertarians: the latter think the current market approximates a free market much more closely than the former do. The latter tend to think a completely free market would look pretty much as it does now, save lower taxes.

The corporate state artificially restricts the number of alternative options available, artificially favors certain kinds of options over others, favors certain kinds of business models over others, and inculcates habits of subordination that make people less likely to strike out on their own. If it’s just about “quit if you don’t like it” then I agree with you: suck it up and DIY. But it goes deeper than that, and it’s in those deeper issues that we leave the realm of personal preference and enter the realm of political economy.

In order to know what kind of free market we’re fighting for, we have to at least have a theory about what parts are the result of privilege, what parts are legitimate, and what possibilities we’d have in the absence of privilege. This is the kind of politics associated with radical libertarianism, and as you can see it leads to conclusions that go far beyond markets.

Justice behind costly scheme(s)…ain’t justice.

Thanks and Good Luck

But, in your son’s case, where no witnesses showed and he was acquitted, that was entirely because you showed up at his four or five court dates over eight months and nothing do do with the PD who had the file talking with the DA during the other 260 days in that time period.

Real life isn’t Law & Order, and the real resolution of most cases does not come in a court room.

It’s not that convicts aren’t citizens. The LA open records act restricts access to records for convicted felons in certain circumstances by excluding the felon from the definition of “person” under the statute. See La. R.S. 44:32(A); See also, Hilliard v. Litchfield, 822 So. 2d 743 (La. App. 2002).

The concept of citizenship doesn’t even arise in the enabling statute. (…[a]ny person of the age of majority may inspect, copy, or reproduce any public record.) See La. R.S. 44:31.

While it may be that Louisiana treats convicted felons as not being citizens of Louisiana, under the open records act that doesn’t seem to matter. (there may be judicial gloss that says it does matter, I don’t have a citationized version of the Louisiana revised statutes).

I’m going to go out in left field a bit on this, though. One thing I wish libertarians would more consistently talk about is subverting the employee/employer power relationship.

Good point. As a libertarian now working for a global company headquartered in Europe (with over 100,000 employees), I struggle with this every day. I learned early on that the sheep are the ones who survive, albeit at the loss of their identity.

I’m not sure what you two are getting at. If you don’t like your job, quit and go do something else. In order to enforce any kind of you “libertarian” ideas, you’d have to break from libertarianism and tell businesses how to run their business.

As to how this applies to the case at hand, Peterson is almost as much to blame as Dufresne. Peterson had a moral obligation to blow the whistle. I think in thirteen and a half years, he should have been able to figure out a way to out the judge for what he was doing.

Thanks for your answer, sorta the disheartening news I was expecting.

@ Nick T: The Fifth Amendment right to due process doesn’t extend to the states, but the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause applies to states specifically.

In order to state a claim, a person whose appeal was summarily denied would probably have to show some likelihood of success on the merits to show that he was prejudiced by the summary denial.

@FWB: Louisiana still has a Civil Law system with respect to non-criminal procedure (which is a lot of fun: no central filing for UCC financing statements, for example, because of the Parish system). I am not sure that is true with respect to criminal prosecutions, but they still have to meet the minimum due process requirements imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

To be fair, the prosecutors OUGHT to believe that the accused is guilty as hell. If they don’t, then they ought not bring charges in the first place. Unfortunately, this often morphs into the attitude you describe, that any person arrested is guilty.

Judges are elected. LA Supreme Court handles disbarment, suspensions, etc. That’s the Disciplinary Board that the cited letter was sent to. Judges have absolute immunity for anything that has to do with judicial duties. The larger problem is that central staff usually handles criminal matters, not judge’s personal staff (at least that’s the case in other LA circuits). It’s going to be hard to tie this to just one judge.

Good point. As a libertarian now working for a global company headquartered in Europe (with over 100,000 employees), I struggle with this every day. I learned early on that the sheep are the ones who survive, albeit at the loss of their identity.

While it is a problem and I would also like to see more about libertarian thought applied to organizations, I think we’d all agree that what’s happening in Louisiana really puts things in perspective. Completely outrageous. Keep up the fight, Radley. Maybe someday something like this could actually be on the _gasp_ news.

I don’t see why a judge wouldn’t be subject no a 1983 lawsuit in his individual capacity for violating a defendant’s consitutional rights (5th Amend. Due Process would seem to be the most obvious).

That’s not an easy case to make out, but if all of this is true, a person who’s appeal was summarily denied would have a strong case. I could be wrong, but that is my understanding.